Philosophers have for long meditated on the nature of loss and concluded that the world around us is ever changing!

In fact change is the only permanent element of the physical realm. Everything else is transient. And loss is just another aspect of this constant change.

But we humans are emotional beings. Dry logic doesn’t appeal to us in time of need. And thus we are left grappling with the question of the aftermath of ‘loss’ and ‘change’ – grief!

Have you ever lost somebody or something you love? How did it feel?

For me losing a cherished object or relationship is all consuming. I tend to forget my surroundings and can think only of the severance. A drama plays out in my heads, about the joy I had derived from the object (or relationship), how empty my life will be without the source of happiness and obviously the ever-green and popular ‘The world is unfair and everything nasty happens to me’.

I am sure most of you have your own version of this litany and can identify with what I go through.

We can find comfort in knowing that this is only natural. As a part of our ‘human’ legacy we have been blessed with the ability to hold on to things and even intangibles like opinions, concepts and relationships and give them a special kind of meaning only we can relate to. In fact we make sense of the world around us through these objects and precepts.

It doesn’t really matter if the loss pertains to something replaceable like a phone or something far more valuable – like an idea or a relationship, our instinct is to focus on what it meant to us and our life and lament its loss.

With each little something we lose, we lose a part of our identity and existence and yes, that is bound to hurt.

Doomed To Grieve? Why You Should Make An Effort To Let Go!

Grieving is a natural process we go through when we lose something. And it is okay to mourn.

For a while!

But it is definitely not natural or healthy to fall victim to the ‘rut’ of unhappiness and distress and taint everything in your life with its effect.

I have frequently crossed paths with individuals who never recover from the loss of an idea, an object or a relationship. They walk through life unaware of the several hundred other blessings God has showered on them. As a result they:

Lose touch with reality and can’t successfully get on with their daily life.

Allow their healthy relationships to degenerate into loveless, compassionless interactions.

Invite into their lives hundreds of diseases like cancer, immunological dysfunction and hypertension. Without good health, coping with grief becomes even more of a challenge.

None of the scenarios are appealing and prolonged grief is now officially treated as a disorder.

There is a simple way using which you can take a more rational and ‘god-centric’ approach to the whole concept of loss and mourning. Let me share this with you!

Surely We Belong To God And To Him Shall We Return:

In Muslim culture, when someone hears the news of a person passing away, the first words to utter are:

“Inna lilahe wa inna ilayhe rajaoon” (Quran 2:156)

For a long time I didn’t understand the meaning of this line and thought it’s something people said just to console the bereaved.

But when I took time to look up its meaning, I felt it had a very profound message; a message that can help people overcome their grief by pointing them to a universal and divine truth! “Inna lilahe wa inna ilayhe rajaoon” literally translates into “Surely we belong to God, and to Him shall we return”

I found that by meditating on the meaning of this verse, I could think of all the objects in my life as transient. I understood (or rather re-realized) the fact that no matter what I did, how well I performed, how much I loved or how hard I held on to something, I was not its rightful ‘owner’ and I would not be able to stake permanent claim on it!

In the end everything, including I myself, will leave the physical plane and begin the journey to reach and become one with His divine light.

As soon as I stepped into this mind-set, I could let go of the scarcity mentality. Even something as pragmatic and mundane as a goofed presentation no longer mattered because it was just one opportunity out of a thousand and since nothing was permanent, something better would come along eventually. The important thing was to praise my courage for taking action!

Every day through the magic of “Surely we belong to God, and to Him shall we return” I focus my attention on the lessons I can learn from my loss and the whole experience.

Putting Wisdom Into Action:

My advice is: Whenever you’re suffering from grief, meditate on the verse “Surely we belong to God, and to Him shall we return”

Through this gem of a thought you can perceive things around you for what they truly are – a form of trust, given to you for safe-keeping, which will ultimately change hands or revert to their ultimate owner, God our Lord.

Once you make this reality a part of your life, you will no longer feel a sense of debilitating grief when you lose or have to give up on something (or someone) precious to you. Instead you will be able to dissect the experience and ‘introspect’ to gain insights like:

What can I learn from this?

What can I do to change my situation?

How can I grow?

What area do I need to improve on?

This exercise will leave you enriched after every loss or severance. You will be full with the knowledge of how the world functions and what you can do to elevate yourself and your skills to make the most of your life and opportunities.

Loss is inevitable! Grief is natural! But it shouldn’t be protracted and all consuming. Grieving for something makes you a gentle human being capable of appreciating value but letting go makes you someone with courage and fortitude.

Remember God owns every grain of sand and every puff of wind on this earth and by entrusting your cherished possessions to his care; you can relax and move on with your life.

Enter the Sufi Comics giveaway to win signed copies of the entire collection!

The Books will be signed by the Authors & Artists, and shipped to you in any part of the world.

We would love for you to enter the giveaway to get a chance to win. All that is required is to pop in your email address on the giveaway page, and share the giveaway link with as many people as you can to increase your chance of winning.

If you ask people why they do what they do, you’ll find “being happy” is behind every single human goal, mission, objective and wish to achieve that “something”.

Happiness not only leaves us with a positive feeling in the center of our being, people who tend to stay ‘happy’ also:

Enjoy their work a lot more

Suffer from less anxiety and tension

Can make creative contributions to their projects and the society

Spread goodwill and cheer

Accomplish a lot

Lead more fulfilled lives without heeding the rat race around them

Make the world a much better place with their sunny temperaments and easy smiles

Compare these desirable states with the mind-set of an individual mired in negativity. You’ll find that they:

Complain very often – leaving everyone around them dissatisfied

Rarely get anything done.

Creative drive is sub-zero.

Have poor health and get stressed easily

So how does one become happy?

Some of the latest psychological findings suggest, happiness is the effect of behaviours we choose to make a part of our lives. By adopting these behaviours, happiness becomes a natural state we live in.

It is truly reassuring to see how the Holy Qur’an advocates these principles. Here are 7 principles from the Qur’an that will help you lead a life of lasting Happiness. Read more

Kiran Ashraf presents a personal account of spiritual inspiration on the importance of individual and collective duty in creating a fair and just society. In her piece she presents what inspired her to take action and calls on others to become aware of their responsibility to help others.

“This country is a failure”

“I don’t know when the poverty around the world is coming to an end”

“It’s the fault of the rulers. Obviously they are the ones to correct things”

Sounds familiar?

Each and every one of us in our lifetime has either come across or ourselves have been caught uttering such hopelessness. We either blame the rulers, the system, some person and many of the times God as well for such misery surrounding us.

By no means I am suggesting that we are wrong in pointing out the faults of the ones responsible but the question remains that have we ever tried to correct the situations ourselves?

Have we ever even tried a little bit to come forward and take this responsibility on our very own shoulders? I don’t think most of us would be nodding their head in agreement right now.

To tell you the truth, I myself at one point in time was the same sort of a person who would just be critical about the circumstances around. I was circled by cruelty, bias, injustice and other malign practices and all I did was to sit at home and cringe about them.

The best I thought I could do on my part was to post about them on the internet because physically getting into the mess to clear it was nowhere near my mind; it was more of impossibility.

Then came the day when I heard a Hadith of Prophet Mohammed where he declared that, “Your leadership will be a reflection of you [the people].”

Yes the wait is over. It is time now to reveal to you the illustration of the cover page!

For this I delve into the creative mind of Rahil Mohsin to uncover the inspiration, symbolism and process behind the design of the cover page. I ask Rahil to share some of his artistic imagination and talent with us by revealing the illustration, the process of creating it, and the inspiration behind it.

As always, the posts would not be complete without the sneak peeks just for you – so scroll down and enjoy as Rahil reveals all this: what, how and why?

What is the process of creating the illustration? Can you share with us the rough/draft sketches?

Much to the chagrin of a lot of people I know, I am a purist. Most of my artworks, including the ones I’d done for Wise Fool of Baghdad and more recently, Rumi, are done by hand. Which means, the process of making an artwork is slower compared to work on a digital software (with all its fancy tools). That, and a mild doze of OCD. The processes I am talking about are the penciling and the inking stages (inside the book). Ali Bhai and Gaffur bhai bring life into the otherwise mundane and achromatic artwork by adding colours to them.

While I’ve vehemently professed my love to the process that gets my hands stained with graphite and blackened by ink, there are
however a few shortcomings when these hand-made art works are printed.

Even if a small part of the said artwork is neglected (inspite of the OCD) and printed right away, the flaw, however small will stand out and ruin the artwork. I did not want to take such a huge risk while designing the cover page.

I initially made a rough sketch of what I’d in my mind on a sheet of paper. Given below is a scanned copy of the sketch.

It is the second book from Sufi Studios containing a wonderful collection of amusing and insightful stories from the life of Bahlool Dana.

For the first time, the book is available on Amazon Kindle, and you can get it for free!

A quick favour

If you liked the book, it would be great if you could drop in a review on Amazon.com page. In today’s “recommendation age”, online reviews really help in spreading the word! The offer is available till 14th April 2014 – so grab it as soon as you can!

More about the book

The book is richly illustrated in the Turkish-Iranian miniature style, and each story followed by sacred verses of the Quran and traditional sayings inscribed in Arabic By Muqtar Ahmed, one of India’s finest Islamic calligraphers.

One of our readers shared this feedback after reading the book:

“For those of us who have been brought up hearing the wonderful stories of Bahlool’s wisdom, this book truly brings them to life in a way unlike ever before. And for those who have not yet heard, trust me you are in for a treat. Reflect on what is inside, and I promise you, you will never think the same way again.“

Check out some eye-catching snippets of the book here. What do you think?

The book is richly illustrated in the Turkish-Iranian miniature styleEach story is followed by sacred verses of the Quran and traditional sayings inscribed in Arabic

Spreading the word

It would be great if you can forward, email, tweet or Facebook this amazon.com link so that your friends & family can also benefit from this offer.

Have you read and enjoyed the book already? Do drop a quick review and let us know what you think.

This offer ends on the 14th April 2014. Don’t miss out and get reviewing!